


Interlude With Some Vampires

by binz, shiplizard



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiplizard/pseuds/shiplizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glenda and Nutt in Quirm. Romances aren't as tidy when they happen in real life, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth having.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude With Some Vampires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [octopedingenue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopedingenue/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!

The coach shuddered to a stop after what had been quite a smooth ride, the absence of the pounding, grating sounds of the golem horses almost physical, and Glenda awoke with a confused start. Her hands clapped automatically together to catch the book she had still been holding as it fell; that she had not actually been holding a book was only a minor inconvenience to the reflexes that had trained since, if not birth at least young childhood, and weren’t about to be shown up by something as simple as a missing book.

“Ah,” said Nutt. “We are here.”

“Oh,” said Glenda, scrubbing at the side of her face. It was warm, slightly patterned with linen, and there was the indent of a thick seam running through it. “Already?” 

“You slept for several hours.“ 

_On you,_ Glenda inserted mentally. _Leaning on you and thank gods I learned how not to drool._ But Nutt sounded oddly pleased about it. And she was oddly pleased about it, which was the surprising part. She had a twinge in her neck that wasn’t going to go away anytime soon and she was a little overheated, but a surprisingly large part of her brain had stopped being sensible and started cooing smugly about having someone to lean against, and, even better, someone who was shyly pleased that she had leaned against him. 

Glenda realized with a little shock that fantasy had been happening to her. She was usually inoculated against that sort of thing; sensibility was stamped through the middle of her. But it was slipping in around the edges. They’d been like a pair of magnets, uncomfortably trying to find the correct distance from each other, until something flipped and she’d taken his hand and reminded herself that nothing really bad could happen if she moved over a few inches. 

And practically speaking she had spent most of the time in the coach watching the scenery or talking to Nutt until the silence muscled back in, or thinking dourly that in the sort of books that mentioned open carriage rides they never worried about the effect that even the smooth gait of golem horses had on the bladder. But she had actually been very happy, and the memories had a hazy glow over them.

Nutt had stopped looking shy sometime in the past day-- she realized that only because he suddenly looked shy again, taking her hand and then unfolding gracefully from the coach so that he could unhook the little steps and offer her a hand. 

She had always dreamed of going to Quirm-- not dreamed, but daydreamed. It wasn’t far. She could take one of the cheap riverboats, or the mail express. She could spend a day there and come back. But just because she could didn’t mean she _could_. Young women from Dolly Sisters didn’t just go to Quirm, not even for the day. And besides, someone had needed to look after things. 

And now she had just done it. In a few hours. It seemed impossible, but her nose was already telling her it wasn’t. Everything smelled like-- like city. Foul river, and too many people, and horses doing their best, but a different foul river and different people and probably even different horses. The buildings around her looked wrong, in an elegant foreign way.

She took Nutt’s hand and stepped down. 

“We have some time until evening. I have been directed to an inn,” he said seriously. He was watching her face. “In fact, I was directed to several, by earnest young people who were approaching arriving carriages. They take advantage of newcomers to the city and will be unreasonably priced, but we will have a place to rest and get the lay of the city before evening, and the golem horses can spend the day in the stable.”

Fighting down the embarrassment that a bunch of street hawkers had seen her snoring on Nutt’s shoulder, she tried to be sensible. They should try to find out where the locals went, and not spend Nutt’s money-- she had a few dollars in her purse, and knew with the instinct of the streets that they wouldn’t go far. In fact, after a quick look around the crowds and the shoes that the people in this part of town were wearing, her money would be practically stationary. Nutt was going to be the one footing the bill, and the idea horrified her. 

_But,_ said the voice of temptation, _you could spend money instead of time. For once. A man you like quite a lot could buy you things because he thinks you deserve them, and it isn’t as if you wouldn’t be grateful._

She hadn’t let go of Nutt’s hand. 

“Thank you,” she said. “We shouldn’t eat here but if we buy a drink and pay for a washup they might actually tell us where we can afford to eat.” 

He nodded immediately, and his hand tightened fractionally on hers. 

He didn’t have his street instincts yet. He would, very soon. She’d watched him absorb knowledge. He was already getting the hang of crowds, in a frightening way. It was going to be difficult, because she could already feel herself resenting his way of picking up things. 

She squeezed his hand back.

“You aren’t going into that tourist trap, are you?” asked someone behind them. 

They turned, and Glenda made sure to keep her handbag in front of her, the hand that wasn’t still holding Nutt’s not-so-casually clutched over the fastening. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Oh nothing,” said the handsome young man, flashing them a closed-mouth smile far too much like Trevor Likely’s to be anything but worrying. She tightened her grip on her bag. “If you wish to spend all your Ankh-Morpork dollars on bad wine and bad information, I could not recommend a better spot.”

“Right, and I suppose you just happen to know a much better place where you’d be happy to take us and and any Ankh-Morpork dollars we might have?” There was something disconcerting about this boy. His skin looked like someone had taken a bit of sanding paper to it, then scrubbed it and polished it up until he shone like one of those old white statues in the Royal Art Museum; he spoke like he was already telling his third joke and you were the butt of every single one. And it wasn’t just that he was Quirmian. 

“ _Mais non_ ,” he gave her another Likely smile and probably thought it was charming. Because it was, if you didn’t know his type. “I would take you and your Ankh-Morpork dollars somewhere where the wine is good, the information is very good, and a pretty lady and her friend are always welcome without charge.”

“Until the fine print on the bill shows up,” Glenda said back sharply. “Come on, Nutt. Let’s find somewhere to wash this dust off--”

“Miss Glenda,” Nutt said politely, staring in that quiet, intense way he had at the too-helpful, too-pretty stranger. “Our new friend is a vampire.” Glenda had just enough time to deepen her scowl at the boy, and the boy enough time to point with his chin and a blasé little shrug of a shoulder at the artfully arranged black ribbon pinned to his lapel before Nutt continued: “And he is here because of Ladyship.”

Glenda narrowed her eyes. “Well?”

“Ah, you are too clever, Monsieur Nutt,” the boy said with a little bow. “ _Oui,_ Mademoiselle Sugarbean. I am Antoine. _Silver plate,_ if you would come with me? Your horses may come as well, there is a stable.”

He proffered his arm, and Glenda ignored it, tightening her grip on Nutt’s hand. They nodded at each other, and followed Antoine down the unfamiliar streets, the rumble of the golem horses and carriage following behind them. 

“I believe she has clacksed ahead,” Nutt said, in an undertone. “She has associates in town. I am not sure why she has sent them to meet us.” 

“I’ve got a pretty good idea.” 

“Like her winged servants, to protect the people of Quirm from me?” Nutt said, looking hurt and like he was trying not to look hurt. 

“No,” Glenda said. “The other way, this time.” _Because she’s not ready to let you go yet. You grew up right there and found yourself and she doesn’t know how not to look after you. Especially since someone did someone’s best to make her feel very guilty about it. So she made sure that you would have a chaperone, a nice friendly chaperone who can take the problem by the throat if the orc news got here before the it’s-a-nice-orc news did._

“Should we send Antoine away?” 

_Yes,_ she thought. _Yes, and do things sensibly and without vampires underfoot and a lot of elegance that I won’t fit well into._

“No.” She leaned against him. “Let’s see where this takes us.”

* * *

Antoine led them through parts of town that made the shoes in the part they’d arrived in look downright dowdy. Glenda set her jaw and thrust herself forward chest first, and refused to think about the state of her boots. The sun shone distractingly off Antoine, glittering and glinting on his skin when came out from behind the clouds long enough to catch him directly. A powder, Glenda finally decided. A very fine powder, like little crushed diamonds. She wondered if Madame Sharn knew about it. It would go wonderfully with micromail. Unless it chafes, she added, dourly.

 _“Et, voilà,”_ Antoine said finally, gesturing with a flourish at a large, ornate door set in a moderately sized, ornate building. “Le Chateau de Père-deschats. The Count is out calling, but Jean and I will look after you, Monsieur Nutt, and Mademoiselle Sugarbean.” 

It took her a moment, but Glenda breathed easy in the triumph that she had now heard the word ‘Chateau’ pronounced before she had to pronounce it herself. 

“It’s smaller than I expected,” Nutt said bluntly. 

“Ah! _Oui,_ you are used to her Ladyship’s lovely castle. No, what you see is but the tip of the iceberg. It extends into the catacombs below.” He paused. “They are very nice, and the ventilation is very good these days.” 

The cook in Glenda (which, it must be said, was most of Glenda, although perhaps slightly less of Glenda than she had been a month ago) nodded approvingly. Ventilation was important, if you were going to be doing anything that involved people, heat, and breathing underground.

The inside was absolutely not what she had expected. There were certainly shades of catacomb to the place, but as they were led down (the direction of the nicer part of the chateau, if you were a dwarf) what she mostly saw was… wallpaper. Curtains disguising dubious alcoves. Desperately cheerful paintings. Wood panelling. 

It was all trying much, much too hard to be what it wasn’t. 

Nutt didn’t seem to notice. 

“Does the decor seem a bit odd to you?” she whispered. 

“It reminds me of Ladyship’s castle,” Nutt said, happily. “It is very familiar.” 

Glenda thought of Lady Margolotta in her pink sweater. _All right,_ she said to herself. _Not the thrilling danger we were expecting. This is on the whole probably a lot easier to deal with than thrilling danger, actually._

The one bad shock she had was passing one of the curtained alcoves and having it pulled open from inside. A figure lurched out, pale and red-lipped, face in a mask of anguish. She recoiled against Nutt, and she felt something dig into her wrist.

“Antoine!” whined the figure. “Where is the count?” 

“Go back to bed, Marcus,” Antoine said, unmoved. “You’re scaring the guests.” 

“I must speak with him, Antoine! I am undone!” 

“You had another rejection letter,” Antoine translated.

“It is treachery. Treachery! Favouritism! I was reborn to play this part!” 

“ _We have guests,_ ” Antoine said firmly, and shooed the wine-soaked vampire away like a stray cat. Quirmian swearing echoed down the stairs. 

“I-- apologize.” He looked nearly sheepish. “Once, this was a theater of the damned. The damnation, we have taken it out, but the theater-- that we could not get out. This is-- pardon me-- a hive of _actors_.” 

“We’ll brave the danger,” Glenda said, not entirely sarcastically. Beside her, Nutt took a breath, and the strange prickling feeling on her wrist stopped. 

She looked down, and saw him pulling in his claws. 

_You brought the thrilling danger with you,_ she reminded herself. _You didn’t actually need any extra. Are you thrilled yet?_

_A little,_ she answered herself. 

Now that she knew to look for it, it was easier to notice that Nutt hadn’t actually changed sizes-- he was just pulling himself in. Being small. 

“It’s all right, they’re just actors,” she said, “I can manage them.” 

“Glenda--” he started, hurriedly. 

“It’s all right.” She wiped her hand quickly on her skirt and took his hand again.

He looked at where their hands were joined, and where the marks would be on her wrist if he had pressed hard enough to leave any, and back at her, and she watched him open back out of himself like a very strange flower. 

“Lovebirds!” called Antoine, voice bouncing up. “Did I lose you? Come on, there’s an all-afternoon lunch, you must be hungry.” 

 

‘Light lunch’, to vampires who didn’t always eat but always had a grand sense of scale, was an opulent table weighed down with pastry, a cheeseboard to rival the wizards’, cuts of meat, and fruit that seemed to have been chosen for how pretty it looked in a bowl, leading to a random assortment of bunches of grapes next to odd prickly Klatchian pears. In fact, everything was arranged to best effect, which meant if you weren’t careful you’d be trying to spread a roll with gravy and put jam on the fish. It was all edible-- all amazingly good, actually, as long as you weren’t silly enough to just grab a plateful of the nearest foods.. 

Glenda had vanished a few minutes back with a kiss on the cheek and an apology. She’d had a puffy little cloud of pastry in one hand and a determined look in her eye. Nutt could imagine her progress down to the kitchen. Depending on the temperament of the local baker, he could also imagine six distinct possible encounters, down to the tone of voice and the exact angle of Glenda’s shoulders. It was not an unpleasant thing to meditate on. 

“So you can smile, _mon ami_!” 

That was Jean, the older of Count Père-deschats’ young... whatever they were. Wards, perhaps, was the safe word. He and Antoine seemed to manage things in the Count’s absence, and wrangle the occasional understudy in crisis who drifted through. Jean looked slightly older than Nutt, Antoine slightly less so, and probably both of them measured their ages in three digits. 

Jean was giving him a careful smile, one that seemed warm without showing much of the teeth. 

“I am capable,” Nutt said cautiously. 

Antoine chuckled. “Oh, goodness. Are you doing the literal golem thing on purpose? It is very charming, but a little on the nose.” 

“I was thinking of Glenda.” 

“Oh, we know,” Jean said, giving a conspiratorial grin to his younger… associate… that did show too much tooth. “It’s terribly romantic.” 

Nutt was used to gossip aimed in his direction, but it usually ran to the lines of ‘that there is a filthy chicken-stealing goblin.’ Or, very recently, ‘that there is a filthy murderous orc, it will screw your head right off your shoulders.’ Certainly, the bledlows had tried to rib him about liking candles too much, and Smeems had tried to engage in this kind of-- very small sparring-- but it had bounced harmlessly off because they hadn’t known anything about him and had never had anything material to accuse him of. 

Now someone knew, and was teasing him about what they knew, and it was actually true; Nutt felt uncomfortably as if he were doing something wrong. 

He decided to change the subject. Firmly. 

“I was considering,” Nutt said, “That Père-deschats translates literally from Quirmian into Father of Cats. By coincidence, and I bring this up merely as a curiosity of wordplay, the Uberwaldian for the same phrase is Katzenvatter. Which reminds me that Lady Margolotta had an associate in the dark times called Lord Katzenvatter. Among other more colourful names. I believe ‘destroyer of homes’’ was among them. It is a curious occurrence.” 

The vampires stared at him, and then broke out into a chorus of scandalized laughter. 

“Oh no, Monsieur Nutt,” Antoine tittered, a hand over his mouth. “And do you also ask the ladies their age?” 

“If I ever needed the information, I would certainly ask.” 

“Oh dear,” Jean said, smiling kindly. “Of course you would.” 

“You imply that I shouldn’t.” 

“Of course not! Terribly rude.” 

“Because?” 

“Because tradition,” Jean answered easily. “Because it is not done and when you do things that are not done it makes people nervous.” 

_The invisible hammer_ , Nutt thought. Glenda had told him about it in the coach. _Or, perhaps, in this case, the invisible pitchfork._

“The name thing, it is not actually to fool anyone.” Antoine waved a hand. “It is-- plausible deniability? It is a show. You are pretending the old days did not happen, everyone wants that, and everyone still knows exactly who you are and where to find you if the virgins start turning up dead. They also want that.” 

“Nobody has actually forgotten that when Lucien turned up there were dark revels and shrieks in the catacombs.” 

“Ah, the revels,” Antoine said, propping his chin on his hand. “You couldn’t have them now. With the carpet.” 

“The stains,” Jean said, closing his eyes in horror. 

“And you put the carpet in to show … the stains?” 

“Very good! Yes!” Antoine beamed at him. “Also because the bare rock, it is very romantic for a while and then you want someplace to sit and to be able to get a good day’s sleep without hearing every little thing bouncing off every single wall in the place.” 

“We are past the age of revels. The humans got civilized, and so did we.” 

“I see,” Nutt said, and he did. It was so much more useful for people simply to explain these things. But perhaps even showing too much awareness of them was menacing. Peering behind the action into the motivation might seem intrusive, for people who had never needed to do so. 

“And now we have dances,” Jean said. “Every week. And everyone is invited. It is very civilized. There is food. And cocoa. And the only stains are when someone spills the expensive wine.” 

“Dances,” Antoine sighed dreamily, in the same wistful way that he had sighed about frenzied dark rites and shrieks in the catacombs. “There’s one tonight. Belle will be there.” 

“We’ve lost him now,” Jean said, rolling his eyes. “You are both welcome to the ball tonight, of course. Ygor will make something appropriate for the young lady, and you… I believe we have something for you.” 

“I’m sorry, did you say Ygor-?” 

Jean nodded. 

Yes. Names. Civilization. Nutt dipped his head in acknowledgement. 

“I will have to borrow clothes. I do not have many.” 

“We have lots,” Antoine said, coming back to the present at speed. “Also hair products.” 

“I know about soap,” Nutt said, a little sharply. 

The vampires gave each other a despairing look. 

“We have until sundown,” Jean said. “He thinks soap is all you do with your hair, he’s never been exfoliated, and he needs a crash course on social pleasantries.” 

Antoine drew a pair of smoked glasses out of the fob pocket of his vest, and put them on. “Hit it.”

* * *

Meanwhile, in the kitchens of the catacomb chateau, Glenda was encountering devices and instruments not even found in the cabinets of the Unseen University.* 

*The ones in the chateau worked, and were designed a safe distance away from B.S. Johnson, famed Morporkian inventor of all the finest small useful household appliances that would someday demolish a small town.

She had scowled at the big golem driven fan ovens because she wasn’t going to be caught dead marvelling, scowled at the larder because she wasn’t going to gape at the quality of the flour and the sugar, and scowled at the pastry chef because she wasn’t going to show that she was terrified and resentful of a woman who could make clouds in pastry form. 

The woman had scowled back, without actually stopping doing any of the three things she was doing. “You think I have time to teach you to make pastry? You think I have years? I don’t have five minutes! There is a ball tonight!” 

“You are not going to teach me to make pastry,” Glenda said. “You are going to make pastry. I’m going to be over there watching you. I’d like some ingredients too. I’ll keep out of the way and clean up after myself.” 

“You’ll keep out of the way? There is no out of the way.” 

“I will make it.” 

“Who are you, girl?” 

“Glenda Sugarbean.” 

The pastry chef still did not pause, but there was a sense that she almost might have done, for effect. “Any relation to Augusta?” 

“My grandmother.” 

“ _Ah._ ” The chef set aside a bowl of something that she had been sifting in a deliberate bowl shaped hole in the chaos in front of her, picked up another, and started to whisk. “I am Marie LeFleur. My mother is Angeline LeFleur. Born Angela Shacklestreet.” 

“ _Ah,_ ” said Glenda. 

Augusta Sugarbean and Angela Shacklestreet, otherwise not people given to deep hatreds, had loathed one another. Much in the way of tigers who don’t care much one way or another that there are rabbits and butterflies and things sharing the same patch of hill, but very displeased indeed that another tiger is. Only the one’s marrying a Quirmian footman and moving away had settled the deep rumblings that had been threatening to drive a schism through the culinary world of Ankh Morpork. 

Daughter looked at Granddaughter, and peace was made between tigers. 

“The kid over there with flour in his hair is my under-apprentice. He turns out pastries at about half the rate he needs to anyway. Go watch him at his station. He’ll tell you all the things I’ve told him about choux, and you’ll show him what he’s doing wrong, right? And I’ll give you some pointers when I stop for a ciggy.” 

Glenda nodded, once. Marie nodded back. Soldiers on the battlefield have saluted each other with less formality. 

 

When Ygor found her, two gruelling hours later, she was up to her arms in flour with a burn wrapped up on one hand and the look of a mad scientist who has finally made the terrible hybrid of steam and dough turn into something approaching a cloud. 

“I can’t leave,” she objected, as he tried to very politely drag her off. 

“Yes you can,” Marie called across the kitchen. “We’ve done this before without you.” 

Glenda scowled at her, and then at Ygor. “All right. I can leave. I don’t want to.” 

“You’ll mith the ball, mithtreth,” he said sternly, standing well back from the food. “And that will not do.

 _Don’t put your foot down,_ said the voice of temptation. _It’s going to be a lot easier for you to get back into the kitchen than into that ballroom. Take this chance now._

“Fine. No, wait--” she looked down at a dress that had been sort of passable before baking had happened in its vicinity, and was now fit for nothing but baking. 

“Taken care of, mithtreth,” Ygor said primly. “I took the liberty of finding you thuitable attire.”

“...where, the vegetable cellar? I’ve seen the women who live here. I couldn’t borrow clothes from one of them. I’d need to borrow clothes from four of them.” 

“Mithreth, do not let the name and the thmart thuit fool you. I am still an Igor.” 

“...right.” 

 

He led her to a quiet room near the top of the catacombs, which as she knew dwarvish culture would have indicated the servants quarters, and as she didn’t know vampire culture didn’t indicate anything at all except maybe ‘put someone who casts a large shadow closer to the sun.’ It was a guest room, not for a particularly royal guest, but it was still about twice the size of the rooms she’d lived in most of her life combined.* There was a dress in dark blue laid out on the bed that actually looked large enough to wear, and a washbasin and a little cabinet of various soaps and oils.

*Or, that is to say, her home. Or, that is to say, the place she would call home that was not actually the Night Kitchen.

 

She had ‘about thirty minuteth’, which wasn’t time to do anything with her hair except re-braid it, but she gave her face a good scrub and got the flour off of her hands and the sugar out from under her fingernails, and hopped into the dress. There were pants on the bed under it. They looked like they would fit, too, although they were of a cotton so smooth it worried her. 

She had a moment of startle when she actually put the dress on. In a life that consisted of handed down or hand-altered clothes, either just too tight to really be comfortable even with the seams let out or still a tent even with all the seams taken in, she had never worn something this comfortable. She chose her boots over the slippers, though-- they were beautiful slippers, but she couldn’t imagine they’d offer any protection against having a foot trod on. 

For a hazy, fantasy moment she thought she might have somehow changed-- a quick glance in the mirror put an end to that. She was still Glenda Sugarbean, but scrubbed and in a nicer dress. 

And it would do. She’d trespassed on the boudoir of Madame Sharn in a less impressive dress than this, all right, and she’d gotten Juliet fifty dollars and a dream career out of it. When Ygor came to get her, she was ready.

* * *

“How do you feel?” said Jean. 

“...peculiar,” said Nutt, carefully touching his hair. Jean had put three different liquids into it, waiting an apparently arbitrary amount of time before washing them back out. Now it was oddly slippery, and smelt of oranges and lemons. He’d had something sandy rubbed into his skin and rubbed back off, and a lotion applied all over. It had smelt of almonds, and now he smelt like pudding. Antoine had offered ‘a little of my own finishing powder for a bit of shimmer’-- Nutt had refused as politely as he knew how. He felt oddly exposed. “Also draughty. I’m not sure this shirt is structurally sound.” 

“The shirt is perfect. You have the big shoulders,” Antoine said patiently, holding his hands apart. “You don’t look like you do, but they are amazing. You need a shirt that shows them off. If you are really concerned maybe a nice waistcoat--” 

“Yes please,” Nutt said, because the fabric of the loose shirt they’d given him was thin and he had his doubts about the top few buttons. It was almost as if they were designed not to hold for long; he suspected that they would fall open and expose him past the clavicle if he did more than stand still without moving his arms much. 

“Right. Silver?” 

“Compliment the skin tone, Antoine, don’t try to match it. Green, I think.” 

“...I’m not at all sure that this is the right size. It seems unusually tapered to the waist--” 

“It’s like you have not been listening about showing off the shoulders at all-!” 

“And a jacket. There.” 

In the end, he was dressed almost exactly as they were, although he had managed to insist on looser pants; on them, the elegant, expensive clothing seemed so mundane as to pass without mention. On him, it felt peculiar. And yes, still draughty. 

“Ta-da!” Antoine spun him towards a mirror, somehow managing to be both proud and smug without being off-putting. “Lucky boy, you can actually see the reflection.” 

Nutt balked, because the reflection in the mirror was unfamiliar. He knew how different he could appear to others, the contracting and expanding of the morphic field making him seem small, or large, but now he looked different to his own eyes. 

His hair seemed foreign. He didn’t often think about his hair; he would have described it accurately as ‘lank’. Under the care of Antoine and Jean, it had transformed: it was almost the same, and yet some fundamental quality had shifted, and now it was ‘sleek.’ Perhaps it was the quality of shine that modified the impression. Maybe that is what the lemons did. The clothes had given him a different shape without the aid of morphic resonance, which was only another form of perception, a matter of proportion, but he still felt odd. Buckles had been tightened or loosened in the right places and the overall effect was to make him look as if he had been put together by a more aesthetic and less violent creator. 

“I am still an orc,” he said. It was unmistakable, even moreso now that he now looked nothing like a goblin. 

“Yes, yes, we’re all monsters here,” Jean said, patting his shoulder. “But we’re pretty ones. And people like that.” 

“Is beauty worth?” he asked. This was directed at himself, but vampires have very good hearing. 

Antoine flashed his teeth, even the pointy ones. “Not even a little. But it’s lots of fun.”

* * *

There was sherry in the drawing room. Glenda eyed it warily, and decided against its assistance tonight. Not before dinner, at least. The activity of the moment seemed to be milling around and talking; since anyone she had anything to talk about with was either missing or in the kitchen, she found herself a patch of corner and observed. 

A cloud of laughter and sparkles floated in-- the young man who’d brought them in, reminding her more of Juliet all the time, and his older whatever-he-was, and-- 

She went to take a bracing drink of the sherry that she hadn’t actually picked up and almost hit herself in the mouth. 

Nutt looked… 

Different. He was still recognizably Nutt, skin still more gray than you expected, face still too round, cheekbones too wide, arms still long and whipcord, but he looked as if all that was deliberate, as if he’d decided on his face like he’d decided on the rich green vest that was just tight enough around his chest to say ‘look how much chest I have to contain.’ His hair-- she’d never really thought about his hair before. 

He looked dangerous in an entirely different way now. In the mysterious dark stranger who strolls into daydreams way, not the way where your head came off. Around her, she could hear the whisper spreading-- _orc._ But the inflection was all different, now. It was a greedy sigh, in the tones that people said _ooh._

He scanned the room and saw her. Every eye was on him as he strode over to her, which meant every eye was on her once he got there. She lifted her chin against the weight of everyone’s stares.

Nutt took her hand and bowed over it very carefully, his lips just brushing her prickling skin. 

“Glenda,” he murmured, his voice low. “...I feel very awkward.” 

“Yes,” she whispered back. “Me too.”

* * *

Dinner was a difficult affair; they were back at the giant table from lunch, but now it was full of glittering people (mostly glittering because of jewels, but a few boys in black ribbons apparently used whatever powder Antoine liked as well) and serious loud conversations that were mostly in Quirmian. 

Nutt had been pulled into a discussion of the Uberwald situation; Glenda was pulled by the conversational current lower down the table, where younger people were buzzing about football. She found herself holding forth about the Dolly Sisters and Dimwell, fielding questions about the new field and the new rules and the extraordinary new ball. She meant to try to talk to Nutt, but between sport and trying to really taste the amazingly expensive food she was putting in her mouth it simply didn’t happen; then, apparently, the men all needed a break to drink and put their thoughts in order so all the women at the table shuffled off to an optimistically named parlor that still had bare rock showing through the cheery wallpaper.

“What do we do in here?” she asked the first person she heard speaking Morporkian.

“Ah! The Morporkian girl. Welcome. We drink, mostly,” said the woman cheerfully, her accent and the fact that she had said ‘welcome’ both indicating that she was probably visiting from Sto Lat. “Sherry?” 

“Yes, please.” 

A few women had sat down at a table and broken out a pack of cards; a few more were standing off to the side having a smoke. 

“These social dos are always a little predictable,” said Glenda’s guide. “Now, when Madame Sharn comes to Quirm, we’ll see a party.” 

“You aren’t joking,” Glenda said. 

“...Have you been?” 

“Well,” said Glenda. “Actually.…” 

And it all came out, and she felt herself being jostled not into the centre but toward it, and everyone was talking about business and the future of beauty products for trolls, and of course about the explosion of popularity for everything micromail. She could hear so much opportunity knocking that it sounded like a drummers’ rehearsal. Cigars were passed round, and more sherry.

And she thought a little wistfully about riding in an open carriage at sunset, which was going on somewhere above them, but this was probably the smarter thing to do. 

Still: 

“We do actually see the men at some point again tonight?” she asked a duchess next to her. 

“Oh, yes. There’ll be dancing soon. Want to go elbow someone and see if we can get it underway-? Yes, me too.” 

 

The women strolled out of the parlor and descended on the ballroom like a casual swarm, picking up the men somewhere along the way, and the music started, and Glenda wedged herself through the crowd until she could find Nutt. They huddled together in a corner, being companionably overwhelmed. 

“I think I understand the progression, though I would not wish to try to repeat it myself,” Nutt said after he’d been studying the dancers a while. “If they play a waltz, the steps are very standard. Ladyship instructed me in that.” 

“How hard is it?” 

“Not very. I believe it is designed so that you can talk while you do it.” 

Glenda eyed the space around them for anyone who was poised ready to snicker. “Do you think you could show me very quickly?” 

“I believe so. If you will allow me to arrange your arms-? Yes. Thank you.” He delicately lifted one of her hands to his shoulder, and put the other on his waist. 

It was the sort of thing that happened in her boudoir novels all the time, and while it wasn’t a magical dream and she wasn’t going to swoon like Mary the Housemaid might have, she could admit that they’d gotten this part right. Standing close to Nutt and not-- groping, but appreciating, the lean muscles in his shoulder was actually very nice. Even if he smelled oddly like a pudding. 

“We will have to ignore the music; it is written in the wrong time. The waltz is written with three beats, and a step to each beat. Try to move with me: I am sorry if I tread on your feet.…” 

He did, and she stepped on his, but it was a simple dance and they shuffled together in the corner until they got it right.

Over Nutt’s shoulder she saw Antoine watching them, and then going to whisper to the head cellist. 

“Is this a waltz?” she asked, as the next song started, although she was pretty certain that it had to be. 

“It is.” 

“Shall we dance?” she offered, because it had to be said and Nutt probably wouldn’t know to say it. 

“Yes,” he said, smiling shyly down. 

They swept out onto the ballroom floor, and promptly trod on each other’s feet, and Glenda realized that she was grinning at him anyway and he was looking back at her with a distinctly soppy impression. Glittering people whirled around them. They shuffled happily mouthing one-two-three at each other. 

“We missed your carriage ride,” he said, an eternity later and also midway through the third waltz. “The sun has set.” 

“I’ll settle for moonlight,” she said dreamily. “...and we should leave before the musicians walk out.” 

Antoine had been standing next to the musicians the entire time, sparkling menacingly and obviously rejecting any requests that weren’t long, simple waltzes. There was visible unrest. Bows were being handled with dangerous intent. 

“Ah,” said Nutt, not-quite-smiling. “Our hosts have been very kind tonight. I should say goodbye to them.” 

“I need to get a business card from Countess Lemoltier,” Glenda agreed. “I’ll meet you outside? You could come out a bit after me so that people don’t think we’ve snuck off together.” 

“I believe they will know anyway,” Nutt said carefully, then paused. “But you wish them to pretend that they do not. Why?” 

“...because it’s how it’s done.” She frowned, some of the hazy glow coming off of the world. “I’m being stupid.” 

“No. Tonight we do it as it is done. We will leave mysteriously. You will have the wind in your hair, Glenda,” Nutt promised. 

The world got, if possible, more hazy and twinkly than it had been a minute ago. “Then I’ll see you in a few minutes.” 

 

And somehow, probably just for tonight, it was perfect. She had to wait outside in the moonlight just long enough for her nerves to work up to shivery anticipation without plunging over the precipice into real worry, and then she heard a carriage coming up with the monotonous clop-clop of golem horses at the front. 

Nutt handed her up, and they drove slowly away, past the differently stinking river and the elegantly wrong houses lit up in the evening, full of silhouettes milling around and holding silhouette glasses, past the bars full of singing. It was cool, but the sort of cool easily kept at bay by sitting quite close to someone else. 

_To hell with it,_ she thought, and reached up to unbraid her hair. 

“Ah-- the wind,” Nutt said, understanding, as she shook it out and felt the sweat get prickly and cold as the air suddenly came in. 

“I know it’s all crimped,” she said. “I don’t care.” 

“It is perfect,” Nutt said, and then very gently kissed her. 

 

And in a boudoir novel this is where it ends. With kissing or, possibly just after the kissing. 

Of course it couldn’t, not really; they had to get back to Ankh Morpork and they’d realize they’d left their clothes in Quirm and neither of them had that many clothes to spare and it was a very awkward few days until they could get their usual things back through the mail coach. In the shorter term they were both feeling the effect that too much carriage could have on the bottom line, as it were, and they would both need to deal with the bladder issue sooner or later, and Glenda’s hairtie would be discovered to be thoroughly lost and they would both have sore feet for the next several days. 

But none of this means that what happened before didn’t matter. And when they looked back in years to come, they would discover that fantasy had moved into the interlude, and set up shimmering curtains and very forgiving throw pillows, even though it had been real at the time. 

So we can end here.


End file.
